When Kevin Roberts dismissed gender equality, referring to it as
a "non-issue," I was reminded of Ad Age editor Ken Wheaton's
recent column on the positive role women might play in what is
often referred to as the "diversity problem."

Credit:

iStock

Mr. Wheaton is relying on change coming from those women with
"hiring power," which, in effect, means white women. I appreciate
his optimism and his faith in my gender but, in my experience,
which spans three decades in multicultural marketing, I have found
white female ad execs just as likely as their male counterparts to
shy away from serious conversations about systemic racism in our
industry.

Kevin Roberts was inadvertently right about one thing. We need
to stop talking about gender and racial diversity as a problem. Our
industry's impotence when it comes to dealing with structural
racism and gender bias isn't a "problem," because if it were, it
would be fixed. That's what we do in advertising. We design
strategies to solve problems.

What we have here, however, are systemic flaws, deep-seated
embarrassments and uncomfortable truths -- the kind that don't get
fixed because they don't get faced. Let's be honest, we are an
industry of non-racists at best (and we are not always at
our best), but our track record as anti-racists leaves
much to be desired. Marlon James, winner of the 2015 Man Booker
prize for literature, underscores the distinction in
this video.

Black America doesn't need advertising as much as advertising
needs Black America. The same holds true for Latinos, Asians,
Muslims, the LGBTQ community, and the list goes on. Hiring is only
the tip of the iceberg. Recruiting and retention depend upon an
informed, measurable commitment to:

The more I hear the phrase "diversity and inclusion," the more I
believe that the pairing of these words is doing our industry more
harm than good. The words have become rather meaningless, even
dangerous. They lull us into a false sense of security, providing a
feel-good mantra that checks all the right boxes but does none of
the heavy lifting.

Somewhere along the line, the word "diversity" became more about
otherness and less about inventiveness. In some contexts,
diversity and inclusion equate to adversity and
confusion. Communities of "others" get aggregated or
bucketed under the diversity umbrella while the existing power
structure remains intact. From the point of view of the
dominant-culture observer, diverse communities seem to share
something in common -- the "adverse" effects that come with not
being straight white non-disabled males or, by extension, white
females.

Mr. Roberts' assessment of the state of gender equality doesn't
account for the fact that race and gender do intersect. His
certitude that advertising women have arrived is a response to
employment trends in which white females are making inroads more
quickly than women of color. This shouldn't surprise anyone. In the
eyes of decision makers, be it conscious or unconscious, white
women are familiar -- giving them one less perceived "adversity"
hurdle to clear. It has been said that familiarity breeds contempt,
but, in advertising and corporate America at large, familiarity
inspires comfort, confidence and camaraderie. Not creativity.

As for inclusion -- what could possibly be wrong with something
that sounds so, well, inclusive? It rules out exclusion and
promotes acceptance, right? Yes, but it's inclusion into
pre-existing structures with pre-existing rules written by -- well,
you know -- dominant culture decision makers. Without disruption
there can be no real inclusion. Change, by definition, requires
creating a new system. To quote French-Cuban journalist Paul
Lefargue, "inclusion with strings attached is exclusion by another
name."

Let's not kid ourselves, there will be more Kevin Roberts types
-- the kind that say the wrong things and step down. Or worse --
the kind who think the wrong things, say nothing, and get to stay
in their jobs. Either way, there will be a lot of talk and little
will get resolved until we reframe the whole (to quote Mr. Roberts)
"f-ing debate." Looking for new words to replace diversity and
inclusion is pointless if we are not actively imagineering new ways
of looking at our workplace and our world. "Diversity and
inclusion" gets reduced to a quantity and quality conversation when
what it's really about is disruption and innovation. We must get
comfortable with cultural conflict and collisions as we navigate
our intersected lives. Diversity isn't our industry's greatest
problem. It's our most visible symptom.